July 2007 Archive

31 July 2007

Google Transit is a journey-planner for public transit systems in nine US cities and all of Japan. It works more or less like Google Maps's driving directions, but for transit systems, and includes itineraries and maps. Weirdly, it doesn't include the NYC subway/bus network, nor the London networks, though London is superbly served by the Transport for London journey planner — via Boingboing

30 July 2007

Federal law enforcement agents raided US Senator Ted Stevens' Alaska home in Girdwood, hauling off undisclosed items from inside and taking extensive pictures and video. Officials wouldn't say what they were looking for or what they found.All I can say is that agents from the FBI and IRS are currently conducting a search at that residence, Dave Heller, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Anchorage office

The results of Australia's only live commercial internet content filtering trial will never be known because the exercise, championed by the federal Government, was quietly abandoned. The trial was expected to go ahead in Tasmania last year but the major internet filtering technology supplier for the project, Internet Sheriff, has revealed that it was abandoned because Australia's two largest ISPs, Telstra and Optus, refused to participate. Internet Sheriff chief executive David Ramsay said the project was commercially risky without support from the two carriers

29 July 2007

A group from Northwestern University in Illinois has a new process for creating carbon-based paper that's stronger than nanotubes, and incredibly easy to use to make sheets of any desired sizes. Huge implications for aircraft, automobiles and the ever-sought-after space elevator — via Slashdot

A new foam-like material that could be used to soak up heavy metals in run-off water from polluted industrial sites has been demonstrated by US scientists. The novel aerogel binds preferentially to heavy metals like lead, mercury and cadmium, allowing other metals like zinc and magnesium to pass through — via djehuty.newsvine.com

28 July 2007

The BBC have made it official — they have been corrupted by Microsoft. With the launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution of BBC programming. You will now need to own a Microsoft operating system to view BBC programming on the web. And you must accept the DRM that the iPlayer imposes. Engadget commenters report that FairUse4WM strips DRM from BBC iplayer downloads so they can be watched in VLC on the MAC — via Boingboing

Dell is working on getting better ATI drivers for Linux for use in its Linux offerings. While it is not known whether the end product will end up as open source, with big businesses like Google and Dell now behind the push for better Linux graphics drivers, hopefully ATI will make the smart business decision and give customers what they want

27 July 2007

Brian May, the lead guitarist from rock band Queen, is close to earning his doctorate in astrophysics — more than 35 years after quitting his studies to become a rock star. May arrived on the island of La Palma in Spain's Canary Islands several days ago to conduct astronomical observations in support of his thesis, according to a statement by the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands

MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla Thunderbird is to move to a new separate organisational setting as the Mozilla Foundation focuses more and more on Mozilla Firefox

26 July 2007

A two-year-old cat has become a telltale sign of death at a Rhode Island nursing home, curling up beside dying patients in their final few hours. Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, detailed the phenomenon Thursday in a brief essay titled A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat. Since he arrived at the centre two years ago, Oscar has been at the side of 25 patients who have died — via Darren Barefoot

Australian researchers have developed woollen clothing that changes colour in the sun and blocks harmful UV rays. While other researchers have already developed colour-changing cotton and glass, this is the first time such photochromatic technology has been applied to wool. Tong Cheng, a PhD student from Deakin University, has created a polymer that is mixed with the photochromatic dye to trap its pigments. The polymer-dye mix is then used to colour the wool. The polymer also absorbs harmful UV rays and increases the fabric's sun protection factor

Bloggers making Freedom of Information Act requests to the CIA will likely get them processed for free under new rules that broaden the definition of who is part of the news media. Professional journalists have long been able to request free processing of their FOIA requests of the intelligence agency. As a general rule, they don't have to pay fees for searching and retrieving files, although they may be charged for duplication costs — via aine.newsvine.com

25 July 2007

From some Iranian newspaper via the BBC via the Washington Post, dubiously sourced, definitely implausible, but please let this be true: A few weeks ago, 14 squirrels equipped with espionage systems of foreign intelligence services were captured by [Iranian] intelligence forces along the country's borders. These trained squirrels, each of which weighed just over 700 grams, were released on the borders of the country for intelligence and espionage purposes. According to the announcement made by Iranian intelligence officials, alert police officials caught these squirrels before they could carry out any task — via Boingboing

The British Government has rejected extending copyright for sound recordings. This is an important development in the face of trends to extend copyright duration, although it leaves British copyright protection for music recordings at a shorter duration than for written works. The decision came despite fierce lobbying from the large British music industry. The music industry will now lobby directly to the European Commission, but without the support of the national government, its position is significantly weakened. British copyright for music recordings therefore remains at 50 years after the date of release of a recording, in contrast to 95 years in the US and 70 years in Australia — via Slashdot

The blueprint for a tiny, ultra-robust mechanical computer has been outlined by US researchers. The energy-efficient nano computer is inspired by ideas about computing first put forward nearly 200 years ago. The scientists say the machine would be built from nanometre-sized components, just billionths of a metre across. Chips based on the design could be used in places, such as car engines, where silicon can be too delicate

Jumbo squid that can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh more than 110 pounds is invading central California waters and preying on local anchovy, hake and other commercial fish populations, according to a study published Tuesday. An aggressive predator, the Humboldt squid — or Dosidicus gigas — can change its eating habits to consume the food supply favored by tuna and sharks, its closest competitors

24 July 2007

Equipment failure Tuesday afternoon knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of Pacific Gas and Electric customers on the Peninsula and in San Francisco — including PG&E's own office and the Financial District. 365 Main, a data centre on the edge of San Francisco's Financial District, was affected by the outage, taking down a lot of its clients sites including; Six Apart's TypePad, LiveJournal, Vox, TypePad and MovableType; Craigslist; local listings site Yelp; and blog search engine Technorati; have experienced downtime today due to a power outage in San Francisco. Still not as amusing as the early rumours of a drunk employee killing the servers or the comments on the SFGate article claiming that zombies had taken over San Francisco and the argument over whether or not zombies are cannibals

Haruo Suekichi has made thousands of watches, each with an individual name. And to think it all started with a one-armed man at a flea market in Japan — via William Gibson

Researchers from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University claim to have come up with a metal that can dampen vibrations, just like rubber. Their exotic material is a composite consisting of ceramic particles embedded in a metal matrix. The metal provides strength and stiffness, while the ceramics have a curious property known as ferroelasticity, meaning vibrations are converted into tiny rotations of crystals within the material. The composite offers the strength of a conventional metal with the vibration-dampening properties of rubber

Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production. Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines. Previously, the organisation behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable. The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007

23 July 2007

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology are working on a new type of nanogenerator that could draw necessary energy from flowing blood in the human body. The hope is to incorporate the new nanogenerator into biosensors, environmental monitoring devices and even personal electronics that will require no fuel source, internal or external. Once completed, this new cellular engine could find various applications, even beyond medicine — via Slashdot

Flash memory is in nearly every handheld gadget, from digital cameras to iPhones. Now Nanosys, a startup based in Palo Alto, CA, says it has found a material that can double the capacity of flash memory found in conventional chips by adding self-assembled metal nanocrystals to the flash manufacturing process. Nanosys, which has shown that the tiny particles of metal are compatible with today's manufacturing processes, has deals with flash makers Intel and Micron Technologies and expects that metal nanocrystals will be in products as early as 2009

Microsoft said that it expects Windows XP, the operating system supposedly made moot by Windows Vista, to make up a significantly larger part of sales in the coming year

22 July 2007

A new method of adult stem cell growth, designed in the Area of Cellular Therapy of the University Clinic (University of Navarra), has demonstrated its efficacy for its capacity to grow cornea stem cells. So Ana Fernández Hortelano, ophthalmologist at the Hospital demonstrated applying the growth technique in treating diseases of the cornea, using stem cells, in 70 test animals (rabbits). The aim of the procedure was to regain the damaged epithelium and thus restore transparency to the cornea

Google has rolled out some spectacular new layers for Google Earth. Astronaut Photography of Earth is filled with images from the last 40 years of NASA Earth exploration, and Earth City Lights has stunning views of our home planet at night, as viewed from space

Microsoft is currently aiming to release the next version of the Windows operating system in about three years. Previously known as Vienna, the OS is now simply known internally as 7. Microsoft's big goal with 7 is to recapture a regular release schedule for their operating system product

21 July 2007

A new moon has been discovered orbiting Saturn — bringing the planet's latest moon tally up to 60. The body was spotted in a series of images taken by cameras onboard the Cassini spacecraft. Initial calculations suggest the moon is about 2km-wide and its orbit sits between those of two other Saturnian moons, Methone and Pallene. The Cassini Imaging Team, who found the object, said Saturn's moon count could rise further still

Google announced it would set aside at least $4.6 billion to purchase a slice of the public airwaves in an upcoming government auction of radio spectrum. The company is imposing one condition on its money: It will only participate, it says, if the Federal Communications Commission requires that all bidders for the radio waves be forced to adhere to principles of Internet openness

Google has announced the acquisition of ImageAmerica, a company that builds high-resolution cameras for the collection of aerial imagery

20 July 2007

Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. The team combined carbon nanotubes with tiny carbon buckyballs (fullerenes) to form snake-like structures. Add sunlight to excite the polymers, and the buckyballs will grab the electrons

The FBI has used PC spyware for the first time to reveal the identity of an offender who sent bomb threats to a high school in Washington state. According to heise Security, a declaration from the FBI official who applied for the search warrant describes the mode of operation of the spyware which the FBI is using under the abbreviation CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier)

The launch of Australian Screen was met with an unfortunate fate: by 10.00am the site had crashed. The new site, which serves excerpts of Australian film and television archives crashed once users — primarily teachers and students — began accessing the new service

19 July 2007

It has long been suspected that there is a silent policy that makes Hotmail automatically delete the majority of attachments to save on bandwidth and internal disk space. Therefore it really doesn't matter if every client has access to 2GB of storage since they don't deliver the attachments to fill that space up anyway. If that truly is the case, then Microsoft may be liable for several hundred million cases of conspiracy and mail fraud — via Slashdot

Tuesday, there wasn't even a fuss. Wednesday, the world was a little different. By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of any person who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq. The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the fact. The UK's Guardian has an article explaining how the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists — via Slashdot

The remarkable adhesive abilities of geckos and mussels have been combined to create a super-sticky material. Unlike other adhesives inspired by the nimble reptiles, geckel can attach to both wet and dry surfaces. Its staying power comes from coating fibrous silicone, similar in structure to a gecko's foot, with a polymer that mimics the glue used by mussels

18 July 2007

A recent appeals court case dealt with Drug Enforcement Administration agents using a key logger to investigate a suspect using PGP and Hushmail. That invites the obvious question: Will security companies ever intentionally overlook police spyware? There were somewhat-muddled reports in 2001 that Symantec and McAfee would do just that, so over at News.com we figured we'd do a survey of the top 13 security firms. We asked them if it is their policy to detect policeware. Notably, Check Point said it would afford law enforcement the courtesy of whitelisting if requested. We've also posted the full results, with the companies' complete answers. Another question we asked is if they have ever received a court order requiring them to overlook police key loggers or spyware. Symantec, IBM, Kaspersky, and others said no. Only Microsoft and McAfee refused to answer — via Slashdot

The New South Wales Transport Minister, John Watkins, is calling on the Federal Government to offer tax exemptions to public transport users. Speaking at the Australian Rail Summit in Sydney, Mr Watkins has drawn attention to what he calls a bias in the current tax system towards private car users. The Minister has told the forum that people who salary package their cars and drive them to work attract tax exemptions which are not available to public transport users. Mr Watkins says the tax exemption should be extended to people who buy public transport tickets

Sci Fi announced that Farscape would be resurrected online in ten short webisodes to be produced by the Jim Henson Company. There are hints that Ben Browder and Claudia Black will both be both available

17 July 2007

American Media has decided to suspend publication of Weekly World News, both the print publication and the web site. No reason was given at press time, although reliable sources do tell us that management turned down at least one offer to buy the publication. The weekly supermarket tabloid--known as the home of Bat Boy and other less-than-probable stories--has long had staffing connections with the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields

A 1935 analogue computer, built at Cambridge University and used to help plan the Dam Busters attacks on the Ruhr hydro dams in World War II, has been restored and put on display at Auckland's Museum of Transport and Technology. The computer came to New Zealand around 1950 and was used, ironically, to build hydro dams there — and to calculate rabbit population numbers — via Slashdot

A liquid that changes colour when exposed to a magnetic field could cheaply replace the colour components in conventional LCD monitors. The liquid contains tiny iron oxide particles coated with plastic. It is cheap and easy to make, and could also be used in flexible, rewritable, electronic paper

Aaron Swartz today announced the launch of the new Open Library project. The goal of the project is to produce the world's greatest library on the Internet free for anyone to use. Starting with the Internet Archive's book scanning project and organising the insertion of new content via a wiki-type model the project seems to be off to a great start. The demo, source code, and mailing lists were all opened up today in hopes of drawing interest from the public at large — via Slashdot

Everyone should be seen as a potential organ donor on their death unless they expressly request not to be, England's chief medical officer says. Sir Liam Donaldson wants a system of presumed consent to be introduced in England to tackle organ shortages. His Scottish counterpart rejected the move

16 July 2007

Scientists have discovered that carbon nanotubes have remarkable springy properties, which could make them ideal for use in artificial muscles. Currently, electroactive polymers are most commonly used to make artificial muscles, but these lack mechanical robustness. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute tested the nanotubes by repeatedly squashing them between metal plates — via Slashdot

In March, the Justice Department's Inspector General revealed that FBI agents had sent a flurry of fake emergency letters to phone companies, asking them to turn over phone records immediately by promising that the proper papers had been filed with US attorneys, though in many cases this was a complete lie. More than 60 of these letters were made public as part of a FBI document dump in response to a government sunshine lawsuit centered on the FBI's abuse of a key Patriot Act power

A new film reviving the cult 1990s TV series The X-Files is moving closer to being made, according to reports. David Duchovny, one of the show's stars, has told reporters he will receive a script next week. Duchovny and co-star Gillian Anderson are both on board to reprise their roles as alien-hunting special agents Mulder and Scully, he said. The script has been written by creator Chris Carter and writer Frank Spotnitz

15 July 2007

An Australian researcher has challenged the traditional assumption that the metric system of measurement was invented in 18th-century France. Pat Naughtin says he unearthed a description of such a system in a book written by John Wilkins, a century earlier in England In the book, Mr Wilkins describes a measuring system defined in units of ten for length, volume and money. He did not use the term metre, preferring Rhineland inches instead

Nestled at the foot of Syria's coastal mountains, an ancient citadel has been put on the tourist map by restoration and excavation that revealed mysteries of the medieval Assassins sect, once based here. Saladin, the great Muslim leader, laid siege to Masyaf castle in the 12th century. But he thought twice before launching an assault on the Assassins, who had a reputation for mounting daring operations to slay their foes

The unavailable_after tag will allow you to tell Google when Googlebot should no longer crawl that page. This tag comes in handy when you have a limited time offer promotional page, and on this page, the promotion will expire on a specific date

14 July 2007

Dingoes should be reintroduced into large tracts of Australian sheep grazing country to control feral animals that would otherwise threaten native fauna, a wildlife expert says. Professor Chris Dickman, of the Institute of Wildlife Research at the University of Sydney, also says it may be time to consider pulling down the dingo fence that was built in the 1880s to keep dingoes from livestock in south-east Australia. He says Australians, particularly the livestock farming community, need to rethink their attitude towards the country's native dog

Although the idea of teleporting individuals from one place to another in order to sidestep the headache of rush hour traffic has been around for quite some time, a team of Australian physicists are busy making it work, on a smaller scale, of course. The team has developed a so-called simple way to transport atoms, which involves bringing the atoms to almost absolute zero, beaming them with two lasers, and using fibre optics to transport them to any other place at the speed of light where they enter a second condensate and reconstruct

The cuneiform inscription in a tablet dating from 595BC has been deciphered for the first time — revealing a reference to an official at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, that proves the historical existence of a figure mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah. It is rare evidence in a non-biblical source of a real person, other than kings, featured in the Bible

13 July 2007

University of Colorado police are investigating a series of threatening messages and documents e-mailed to and slipped under the door of evolutionary biology labs on the Boulder campus. The messages included the name of a religious-themed group and addressed the debate between evolution and creationism. There were no overt threats to anybody specifically by name, CU Police Commander Brad Wiesley said. It basically said anybody who doesn't believe in our religious belief is wrong and should be taken care of

You're allowed to be Hitler, but don't even try being Gay on social networking site Facebook. It's been revealed that the popular web site — which boasts it has more than 30 million members from around the world — does not allow people with the common Anglo Saxon surname Gay to join, assuming it is not a legitimate name. Thousands of people across Australia share the surname

Apple has bought out CUPS, the common UNIX printing system. The name may not sound familiar, but it's part of every Mac OS X installation. CUPS implements a cross-platform printing system based on the Internet Printing Protocol and is, according to its web page, the defacto standard printing system for Linux

12 July 2007

The squid, the mantle or main body of which measured two metres long, was found by a walker late on Tuesday on Ocean Beach, near Strahan, on the western coast of island state Tasmania. It's a whopper, Tasmanian Museum senior curator Genefor Walker-Smith told local media on Wednesday. The main mantle is about one metre across and its total length is about eight metres

Scientists at Seoul National University Korea are seeking to commercially clone dogs this year — the world's first attempt to create canine clones for money. Senior researcher Kim Min-kyu at the Seoul-based University is spearheading the efforts based on his team's expertise in cloning dogs. As per Mr. Kim early last month, they signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Customs Service to clone its drug-sniffing dogs. They have already obtained somatic cells of the expensive dogs and will attempt to clone them in July or August to get puppies late this year at the earliest — via Slashdot

Environmental concerns are driving companies to rethink their data centre strategy, especially in the area of storage systems, since storage accounts for 30 to 40 percent of power used in data centres

EFF has obtained FBI documents showing years of chronic problems with its use of National Security Letters (NSLs). The issue first drew widespread attention four months ago, when the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General released a report revealing extensive misuse of NSLs in a sampling of four FBI field offices. These findings were, unfortunately, not surprising to critics of the Bureau's NSL power. Before the USA PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001, the FBI could unilaterally issue these demands only to obtain the records of suspected terrorists or spies. Under the changes made by the controversial anti-terrorism law, however, the FBI can now use NSLs to get telephone, Internet, financial, credit, and other personal records about anybody — without any court approval — as long as it believes the information could be relevant to an authorised terrorism or espionage investigation

11 July 2007

Australia will create a wildlife corridor spanning the continent to allow animals and plants to flee the effects of global warming. The 2,800-kilometre climate spine, approved by state and national governments, will link the country's entire east coast, from the snow-capped Australian alps in the south to the tropical north — the distance from London to Romania. The creation of the corridor was agreed by state and federal governments this year amid international warnings that the country — already the world's driest inhabited continent — is suffering from an accelerated Greenhouse effect

Researchers in Madrid are claiming that they have discovered that a type of wax found in olive skin can help to slow the spread of HIV. Their work shows that maslinic acid — a natural product extracted from dry olive-pomace oil in oil mills — inhibits serin-protease, an enzyme used by HIV to release itself from the infected cell into the extracellular environment and, consequently, to spread the infection into the whole body. These scientists from Granada determined that the use of olive-pomace oil can produce an 80% slowing down in AIDS spreading in the body

Alexander Ratushnyak compressed the first 100,000,000 bytes of Wikipedia to a record-small 16,481,655 bytes (including decompression program), thereby not only winning the second payout of The Hutter Prize for Compression of Human Knowledge, but also bringing text compression within 1% of the threshold for artificial intelligence. Achieving 1.319 bits per character, this makes the next winner of the Hutter Prize likely to reach the threshold of human performance (between 0.6 and 1.3 bits per character) estimated by the founder of information theory, Claude Shannon and confirmed by Cover and King in 1978 using text prediction gambling. When the Hutter Prize started, less than a year ago, the best performance was 1.466 bits per character — via Slashdot

10 July 2007

Neuroscientists say a recent report indicates moderate drinking may have a positive effect on the health of a person's brain. Some of the world's top neuroscientists are meeting in Cairns, in far north Queensland, to discuss ground-breaking research that shows brain cells continue to grow throughout our lifetime. Queensland Brain Institute director Professor Perry Bartlett says the report shows drinking alcohol does not kill off brain cells — and that drinking up to four standard glasses of wine a night might be beneficial

Google has agreed to buy web-based security provider Postini for $US625 million ($727 million), expanding its package of online applications to compete with Microsoft Office. Privately held Postini provides security and encryption services, protecting instant messaging, email and other communications, to more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users worldwide. The deal will help Google provide larger organisations with more web-based services similar to its Google Apps package, which includes its email service Gmail, word processor, spreadsheet and business presentation software

In the end it looks like the Swedish police dropped the Pirate Bay from the list of sites filtered for containing child porn. The update of the filter, which is scheduled for later this week, won't contain the Swedish file-sharing giant. The police say that the reason for this change is that the torrent containing the porn has been removed. But the Pirate Bay states that no files have been removed — via Slashdot

Dell said last week that in addition to selling PCs based on Ubuntu Linux, it will also offer systems designed for the SMB market — outside the US. After some confusion over Dell's Linux strategy, the company said it felt the need to clarify things

09 July 2007

Its rock-hard surface can take a full-on assault from a baseball bat, yet remains flexible enough to allow you to kick, leap and roll with perfect ease. Crafted from cutting-edge science, its unique molecular structure means that while providing armoured protection against crude concrete and even barbed wire, it remains light enough to allow you to run at high speed. In a nutshell, d3o is an advanced polymer with an intelligent molecular structure that flows with you as you move but, when shocked, locks together to become rigid enough to absorb impact energy. In its simplest form, it is like an automatic knee-pad that can be sown seamlessly into a pair of jeans — via Warren Ellis

Good news for those struggling with broadband, as the government has launched a web resource to help you get things up and running. Broadbandnow.gov.au lets you track down the options in your neighbourhood (excellent for rural folk), explains the technologies, lets you easily file complaints on your service provider, and gives information on assistance programs, initiatives and international comparisons

AMD has released details of two new ATI TV Wonder USB Dongles which will convert your PC or laptop into a DVR for your HD content. The TV Wonder 600 USB will work across multiple platforms via the A/V-input adapter to record video from your VCR and camcorder. It also includes a credit card sized IR remote — via CrunchGear

08 July 2007

The Wellcome Trust, one of the UK's largest medical charities, has released its image collection under Creative Commons licenses, with a new web site to search through it — via BoingBoing

A showdown between Rising Tech, a Chinese Antivirus vendor, and Kaspersky Lab in a Chinese court could have implications for software vendors that misidentify system files and files from their competitors as being malicious — via Slashdot

The NanoSphere finishing technology is based on the self-cleaning principle and is nearly a perfect copy of nature. Water, stains and other substances such as ketchup, honey, oil, red wine or blood simply run off the nano-surface — via William Gibson

07 July 2007

Cleantech America, a San Francisco company, said Friday it plans to build the world's largest solar power farm near Fresno, California. The 80-megawatt farm is to occupy as much as 640 acres (260 hectares) and upon completion in 2011 will be 17 times the size of the largest US solar farm. The farm will also be about seven times the size of the world's biggest plant and double the largest planned farm, both in Germany

It's been a year and two months since the worlds largest torrent tracker, The Pirate Bay, was originally raided and shut down by Swedish police, and now they're at it again, but with claims of child pornography. Brokep, over at The Pirate Bay, got a heads up from a friend that the Swedish Police are going to put the site on its porn filter blacklist; this means anyone who tries to access the site from Sweden will get redirected to another site with a message explaining that they are not allowed to visit child pornography sites

Scientists have told a conference in Switzerland that a genetically engineered herpes virus has shown early promise in clinical tests. They say researchers believe viruses — which are experts at killing cells — could one day become a valuable addition to the medical armoury against cancer

06 July 2007

A young German entrepreneur has won a legal battle against Google on the use of its Gmail brand for free electronic mail service. The regional court in the northern city of Hamburg ruled that Google may not use the name in Germany, upholding 33-year-old businessman Daniel Giersch's claim to have a copyright on the name for an email service he has been developing for seven years

Researchers have demonstrated disk write speeds one hundred times faster than current hard drives. The method uses a laser to heat the recording surface and alter its magnetic field. There is no equivalent read speed increase though. Dutch scientists at Radboud University Nijmegen used a laser to send flashes of polarised light to a 5-micron-wide spot on a disk surface which was heated. The sheer angular momentum of the photons hitting the recording surface was then able to flip the magnetic field if the light was polarised one way, but left it unaltered if polarised in the other direction. A traditional magnetic field reader was then able to detect binary ones or zeroes accordingly

Although AllofMP3.com was shut down by the Russian Government this week, customers from the site who have existing credit can still purchase songs through its downloadable windows desktop and smartphone client, allTunes.com

05 July 2007

A strange cephalopod has been found near Keahole Point on the big island of Hawaii. It appears to be a cross between an octopus and a squid, which is being called, you guessed it, an octosquid. The specimen, which has 8 arms, an octopus head and squid mantle, was brought up from a depth of 3000 feet by a pipeline operated by Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority

A tiny generator powered by natural vibrations could soon be helping keep heart pacemakers working. Created by scientists at the University of Southampton, UK, the generator has been developed to power devices where replacing batteries is very difficult. The device is expected initially to be used to power wireless sensors on equipment in manufacturing plants. The generator's creators say their technology is up to 10 times more efficient than similar devices

A court has ruled that the Belgian ISP Scarlet Extended SA is responsible for blocking illegal file-sharing on its network, setting a precedent that could affect other ISPs in Europe, according to a recording industry group. Belgium's Court of First Instance has given the Internet service provider six months to install technology to prevent its customers from sharing pirated music and video files. The music industry has long sought to hold ISPs responsible for illegal file-sharing on their networks, although in the US it has been largely unsuccessful. ISPs have argued that they provide a service like a post office or a telephone company, and shouldn't be required to police the traffic on their networks

04 July 2007

Media Defender, a company which does the dirty work for the MPAA, has been caught setting up dummy web sites in an attempt to catch those who download copyrighted videos. The site, MiiVi.com, complete with a user registration, forum, and family filter, offered complete downloads of movies and fast and easy video downloading all in one great site. But that's not all; MiiVi also offered client software to speed up the downloading process. The only catch is, after it was installed, it searched your computer for other copyrighted files and reported back

03 July 2007

Auction giant eBay has launched an online classifieds service that will compete with market pioneer, Craigslist. Kijiji, a site eBay has operated overseas for two years, is now available in about 220 cities across the United States

A political battle is raging in Russian cyberspace. Opposition parties and independent media say murky forces have committed vast resources to hacking and crippling their web sites

02 July 2007

If the X-Finger looks like a prop from The Terminator, relax. It isn't out to kill you, and it isn't robotic. In fact, it's a mechanical prosthetic finger so effective it provides articulation as fast and flexible as the real thing. Invented by Dan Didrick of Naples, Florida, the device has no batteries, electronics, servos or actuators. Instead, each digit incorporates a simple mechanism which, when pushed by the surviving part of the wearer's finger, curls a set of artificial phalanges

It appears for the moment that Universal will not renew its long term contract with Apple for content on the iTunes store. While the details are not known about the exact nature of the dispute, many speculate that it has to do with Apple's stance on fixed pricing and Apple's refusal to license their DRM. The worse case scenario may include Universal pulling its entire catalog from iTunes. Both sides stand to lose out with 1/3 of of new releases coming from Universal and an estimated 15% of Universal's sales coming from digital downloads. Apple's market share is about 75% of digital downloads, and digital downloads are growing while CD sales are shrinking

The armada of 29,000 plastic yellow ducks, blue turtles and green frogs broke free from a cargo ship 15 years ago. Since then they have travelled 17,000 miles, floating over the site where the Titanic sank, landing in Hawaii and even spending years frozen in an Arctic ice pack. And now they are heading straight for Britain. At some point this summer they are expected to be spotted on beaches in South-West England. While the ducks are undoubtedly a loss to the bath-time fun of thousands of children, their adventures at sea have proved an innvaluable aid to science

01 July 2007

Smokers across England have sparked up at work and in the pub for the last time as the ban on smoking in enclosed public places begins. The new law, which came into effect at 0600 BST, is intended to cut deaths from second-hand smoke. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland already have similar bans in place

Once manufactured under an exclusive contract with the US government, the recently declassified window film is now available to the public. Currently, Signal Defense Film is only available directly from the manufacturer, CPFilms, at prices that will likely make it prohibitive for all but the wealthiest home owners. The coating, which in its thinnest incarnation is only two one thousandths of an inch thick, can block Wi-Fi signals, mobile phone transmissions, even the near-infrared, yet is almost transparent, making it no more intrusive than conventional window treatments. It can keep signals in (preventing attempts to spy on electronic communications) or out, minimising radio interference and even the fabled electronics-destroying electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear blast

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